


Rosewood

by NeedsMoreBears



Category: The Masquerade Series - Seth Dickinson
Genre: Advice, F/F, Historical Sex Toys, Masturbation, Safer Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27471661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeedsMoreBears/pseuds/NeedsMoreBears
Summary: Iscend offers Baru a lesson in self-control.
Relationships: Baru Cormorant/Iscend (The Masquerade Series)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10
Collections: Femslash Exchange 2020





	Rosewood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JackedofSpades](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackedofSpades/gifts).



Baru thought that after Aurdwynn she should be immune to winter. In Falcrest, the season meant nothing grand. No wind, no snow. Just a constant ugly drizzle that swept off the water and stayed for weeks on end. Baru's office had an iron stove that devoured charcoal like a child eating ripe figs. She was embarrassed at how much coin she spent to keep it full.

When she came into her office one afternoon, shaking the rain from her hat and oilcloth cape, she found the stove already lit. She spun in a tight little circle, expecting a member of the cleaning staff in some corner, but no one else was standing in the room. Not standing. There was just Iscend, stretched out in Baru's chair. She was wearing a sleeveless jerkin and a skirt cut narrow, in the Oriati fashion. Her bare toes arched against a fleecy lap-rug. It should have been thrown over the back of the chair.

"This is my place," Baru said, feeling childish.

"I am here to provide a service." Iscend twisted to look at Baru. She had painted her face in the Oriati style as well. The bold lines drawing away from the corners of her eyes made her look even more like a fox than usual. "Baru, when is the last time you experienced an amatory climax?"

"That isn't any of your business." Baru hung her cape up and drew nearer to the stove. Iscend could reach out those slender toes and tug her waistcoat. Baru pretended she wasn't calculating the angle.

"Baru, your focus is as fractured as a shop-window after a riot. I haven't lifted a finger, and you're already twitching."

"You're not my lover. And you won't ever be." Baru could hear herself in the schoolyard, now—"I hate you more than every place in the Round Number! You're like dividing by zero!"

Iscend laughed. "I'm not going to touch you. I'm going to show you something." 

Her teeth were no sharper than other people's. This always startled Baru. She was thinking about whether to turn away, to set Iscend on Hu's side and proceed with her original plan for the day, when the other woman continued, "If, that is, you wish it. If not, I shall say, Gaios, pick up that satchel without opening it and proceed on your way, and then I shall proceed."

Of course there was a satchel, set beneath the chair, where Iscend's fingertips could just brush the strap. Baru would regret knowing what was inside it. But she would regret not knowing Iscend's plan even more. She shrugged, feeling the jolt of it, the tightness in her shoulders. "Go ahead, then. Show me."

Iscend drew out a cylinder made of rosewood, oiled with the shine of skin. One end was rounded and dimpled, like a plum, the other slightly flared. "Do you recognize this?"

"I'm an isoamorist, not an innocent." 

Iscend unlaced the top holes of her jerkin and cradled the model against her skin. She could be basking in the summer sun. "This isn't an anatomy lesson. I'm asking, do you know the uses of this tool?"

"To satisfy the constitutional urges of the female, when deprived of access to the male member," Baru recited. "This is Yawa's department, not mine."

Iscend thrust the tool between her breasts. The lacing of her jerkin held it. Baru didn't know how she could breathe so slowly. "The male member is irrelevant. You don't touch yourself often, Baru."

Baru shrugged again, quick, unsteady. "I envision what I need. That's plenty."

"Oh, Baru. Any woman with sad eyes and a fraction of a smile can lead you. It's dangerous to the Republic." Iscend pressed the satchel open, drawing out something a bit like a jellyfish. A gold ribbon trailed from it, silky, like Iscend herself.

"You're offering to stand in for a man of the Republic?" Maybe Baru's sarcasm would hide the coil of her excitement.

"I'm going to demonstrate." Iscend retrieved her model and pressed it into her baudruche, tying the golden ribbon at the bottom. 

The prophylactic would be made of mammalian skin, really, something that would grow warm to the touch. Baru had never expected to need one, but she remembered her hygiene lessons. She shoved her hands in her pockets, knowing it did not look casual. 

Iscend curled her fingers around the hem of her skirt. She pulled it over her hips with the inevitability of a parabola, arching away from the chair. The hair between her legs was closely trimmed, almost a shadow. She licked the fingers of her left hand. "If you can touch yourself, in the ways you know you need, that is control."

Baru blinked. For a moment, Iscend was gone, and her office was her personal dominion. It wouldn't last.

"But you have never controlled the way you touched yourself, have you?" Iscend's voice was soft, inexorable, the way she drew her fingers over her body. "There was always a man who had instructed you to do so, or not to do so. You remembered his advice."

"I suppose you are an expert." 

"You needed a woman, for your release. For your permission. Your own self was not enough." Iscend could keep her eyes closed, could let her fingers dip inside her body.

"I _am_ an isoamorist." Baru was getting better at projecting a smile she could not feel.

"That's where the tool comes in. Because it isn't you, and still you choose its motion." 

Baru said, "Mmmm." She intended to sound skeptical, but her voice melted at the edges, leaching into wonder. 

Iscend's fingers played across her body as if she was keying a code into one of the cryptarchs' devices, making deft adjustments to a dial. Baru knew she was supposed to go on watching, that Iscend had chosen this display for Baru's observation. She searched inside her stomach for rebellion, and found only the stoked glow of the stove.

Baru expected a slow shifting, a long curve, the inevitable relaxation of a tall clock's spring. She wasn't prepared for the way Iscend thrust the model into herself, the clench of her hips, the groan like song. The golden ribbon fell across her thigh.

Baru finally spun to her forgetful side, but not quickly enough to avoid the murmur, "Gaios," and then, longer, "Gaios." Baru wanted to shove her fist into her crotch. She warmed her hands at the stove, instead. Her missing finger ached.

Iscend took the satchel away with her. The baudruche went into Baru's wastepaper basket, folded in a scratch-paper envelope, entirely hygienic. She left the rosewood model.

Baru didn't have to test it. She could make any choice she liked.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to C. for beta-reading quickly and thoroughly!


End file.
